Businesses today must be able to back up their data and have the ability to recover it in the event of a data loss. It’s not an option. However, while awareness about the importance of backup and recovery has risen over the past two decades, 58 percent of small businesses are still unprepared for a data loss. Companies that don’t invest in backup and recovery could end up paying a high price.

What is backup and recovery?
Backup and recovery are the processes associated with duplicating data to store in the event an organization experiences a primary data loss. To properly backup your data and prepare for a worst-case scenario, best practices typically include:

• Performing a data assessment
• Classifying data and determining acceptable levels of downtime for each classification
• Scheduling backups to be performed routinely with critical data mirrored live or frequent snapshots taken
• Testing backup plans to ensure they work

Depending on the reason for the loss, recovery from backup could be restored to its original location or to a hot or cold site. These are sites where a business can start to resume its operations in the event their physical location becomes unavailable.

The value of performing backup and recovery.
Anything can happen to an organization, often at the most unexpected and inconvenient time. Consider how often you hear about the following types of events that result in data loss:

• Hacks, ransomware, and malware
• Natural disasters
• Fire
• Software or hardware failure
• Data corruption
• Accidental deletion

Replication of data ensures a business won’t be without its information in the event any of these types of disasters occur.

The statistics.
Backup and recovery aren’t just a necessity for large businesses anymore. Data has become a valuable commodity and all modern businesses heavily rely upon it. Without it, it’s hard for a company to remain competitive. Let alone function, as most businesses can’t survive without it. Consider these dire statistics:

• 43 percent of cyberattacks target small businesses
• 60 percent of businesses that experience a data loss shutter their doors within six months
• Businesses that experience a major fire close within a year; 70 percent close within five years
• Each week in the U.S. 140,000 hard drives crash
• After losing their data centers for 10 days due to disaster, 93 percent of companies filed for bankruptcy within the year
• Total cost of data breaches is forecasted to exceed $2.1 trillion in 2019

Any company, regardless of size, should take creating a business contingency plan seriously. Always expect the unexpected. Is your business prepared for a data disaster? If not, now’s the time to reconsider. To learn more about our options for data backup and recovery, contact us today.